Ever since he was a child, lyre player Manolis Diamantakis, from Fourfouras village of Amari, Rethymnon, had an inclination to music. The only problem was that he had neither a lyre nor a bow. In the beginning, he made a makeshift lyre out of pear tree wood, with strings made of leather straps. He used horsetail hairs for the bow and struggled to play.

Totally self-taught

Just when Manolis had finished the construction of his best lyre, a big boy by then, his mother yelled at him: “Come on Manolis and bring some water. Run to the fount or the food will burn”. The fount was far away and Manolis was late because he was carving mulberry wood into another musical instrument. Manolis’ tardiness, along with the fact that the food was getting burnt, was too much for the woman to take and she grabbed the lyre and shattered it into a million pieces.

But that was not enough to put Diamantakis off. All alone and with no help from any other musicians he kept playing the lyre and his music got better and better as the days went by.

When a melody came to mind, he used to sing it first and then he played it on the lyre. He played for the first time in front of an audience during a wedding, when he was 18 years old. During the next couple of years his popularity soared, so in1970 he asked some lute players, who would also sing, to join him.

He preferred Thanassis Skordalos, who was the best musician in Crete. “I didn’t care about the money; I was a farmer, not a professional musician. Some drachmas and a few dimes was all I got and I never complained about it, it was entertainment that I wanted to offer, I wasn’t looking to make money. Back then, people then used to keep quiet and dance around me, as close as they could get, in order to hear the lyre. Nowadays they have equipment and they play on stages, so it makes no difference if people below are shouting”.

He never played again because of the mourning

Diamantakis, whose name will be written in capital letters in the musical history of Crete, ceased playing the lyre once and for all a few years ago, after the death of a beloved granddaughter. Grief and mourning can't be easily surpassed within the deeply emotional and traditional society of Crete.
TEXT-PHOTOS: GEORGE ZAFEIROPOULOS
SOURCE: www.greecewithin.com

MORE PHOTOS

A view of Fourfouras village in Amari.

The houses in Fourfouras have a fortified character.

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